The middle man

Recently someone hurled the epithet at me that several of my books have been "self-published. Guilty as charged. Had a made a secret of this?

I like the control that self-publishing gives me. Total control. From the cover illustration to the selection of poems. It is heady and necessary, to me.

Aeons ago a school newspaper editor edited a poem of mine, reversing the first two lines because she said it made them "more proper newspaper form". I got in her face about it. Three ways to see what anger lies within: Mess with my children, insult a muse, edit my works. There are dragons in the deep and I sometimes forget to hold fast their tethers when those conditions occur. I can get pretty ugly.

After the dance of approval on the cover for "from an unexpected quarter" I swore I would not relinquish control or approval again. You are not getting me, filtered through some editor's vision (how many novels are so heavily rewritten by the editor that they are no longer the voice of the author?).

I also hold to my rights, giving them out as golden apples as it pleases me to please others. A handful of muses have found themselves with the rights to works written of and for them. It is the least I can do for all they have given me.

Where am I going with this? I keep getting inquiries from an online service called "Associated Content"...I know people who post there. They get paid for their works, people buy content from them and they make a few bucks. It is tempting.

But then you read the "Terms and Conditions" and most of the way down the page you hit this:

"By submitting any User Content through or to the AC Network, including on any User Tools or User Pages, but excluding any User Content you submit on AC Blogs, you hereby irrevocably grant to AC, its affiliates and distributors, a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, and fully sub-licensable license, to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, create derivative works from, transfer, transmit and distribute on the AC Network, in connection with promotion or elsewhere, such User Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate the User Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed. Notwithstanding the foregoing, when you submit a text, video, images , AC may modify the format, content and display of such User Content. The foregoing grants shall include the right to exploit any proprietary rights in such User Content, including but not limited to rights under copyright, trademark, service mark or patent laws under any relevant jurisdiction. With respect to User Content you Post for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of AC Blogs, You grant AC the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such User Content on the AC Network or on any media. You agree that the foregoing grant of rights by you to AC and its affiliates is provided without any the entitlement of payment of fees or consideration. "

Layman's terms: You keep your copyrights. But they don't have to honor them. They can use your works, even sell your works (to the degree that does not deny you your right of ownership) with no compensation to you. If they found a publisher that wanted to put out a book of your works...they could sell it and keep the money. If someone wants to argue the point, I would love to be proven wrong, but we already have a society, an economy, where the innovators, the inventors, the artists, get less than the businessmen who sell them.

Look at Microsoft. Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world. He didn't invent the software you use. He just owns the company and whether or not the people who actually innovate and develop these systems and applications are appropriately rewarded, he gets richer. The middle man benefits.

I'm not saying AC is a bad bunch of people. I am just saying that before you post away your rights on a picture or a poem, read the terms and conditions. I am obsessive about that, it has kept me out of a bad situation more than once. Think of it as a pre-nuptial (I could have used one of those...twice) for the marriage of creativity and commerce.

But think.